Nancy L. Meek

LETTER TO A NEPHEW

‘Tis so very true…
Our innocent boys naively leap
into Uncle Sam’s over-eager arms
who’ll carry him off and drop him into a world of harms
then stand idly by him or perhaps deny him the rest of his years
as into his post-war sleep, nightmares increasingly creep.
Awarded: August 13, 2004Uncle Sam, tall-as-a-tree,
will then just point his finger at him, and say,

“Knock it off already, boy!…

Didn’t you know what you were getting yourself into,
giving your ultimate all for our red, white and blue?
Thank your generous parents for me, would you,
who brought you into this world to fight for your family
mom’s apple pie, baseball, all you cherish, you see
so the rest of us can dwell in sweet peace with liberty.

Get over that legless soldier who died in your arms
for he’s in a better place, out of reach of harms.
There’s no need to get all worked up, to set off alarms
that wars just cause more misery, death and pain.
Get over it, boy, ‘cause you know we’ll go to war again,
if not with you, then with that cute little grandson of yours
whom I’ll teach to kill till peace doves have had their bitter fill
and demand we pull out of the deadly destructive and senseless war;
Oh, I’ll oblige ‘em, but only for a while, till they calm down a spell.